"Unfortunately so much commentary is self-serving or sensationalist. Pete Wargent shines through with his clear, sober & dispassionate analysis of the housing market, which is so valuable. Pete drills into the facts & unlocks the details that others gloss over in their rush to get a headline. On housing Pete is a must read, must follow - he is one of the finest property analysts in Australia" - Stephen Koukoulas, MD of Market Economics, former Senior Economics Adviser to Prime Minister Gillard.

"Pete Wargent is one of Australia's brightest financial minds - a must-follow for articulate, accurate & in-depth analysis." - David Scutt, Business Insider, leading Australian market analyst.

"I've been investing for over 40 years & read nearly every investment book ever written yet I still learned new concepts in his books. Pete Wargent is one of Australia's finest young financial commentators." - Michael Yardney, Australia's leading property expert, Amazon #1 best-selling author.

"The most knowledgeable person on Aussie real estate markets - Pete's work is great, loads of good data and charts, the most comprehensive analyst I follow in Australia. If you follow Australia, follow Pete Wargent" - Jonathan Tepper, Variant Perception, Global Macroeconomic Research, and author of the New York Times bestsellers 'End Game' and 'Code Red'.

"The level of detail in Pete's work is superlative across all of Australia's housing markets" - Grant Williams, co-founder RealVision, author of Things That Make You Go Hmmm...one of the world's most popular & widely-read financial publications.

"Younger and more skilled immigrants are best placed
to make a positive economic contribution to Australia. These types of immigrants provide
a demographic dividend by increasing the proportion of people in the workforce, thus
reducing the negative impacts associated with an ageing population. Skilled immigrants are
also more likely to generate spillover benefits through enhanced productivity, innovation,
and greater flexibility to move to other occupations in response to changing labour
markets."

The 'right' level of immigration

Notes the PC:"Assuming that net overseas migration (NOM) continues at the long-term historical annual
average rate of 0.6 per cent of the population, the Australian population is projected to
grow to 40 million by 2060 — some 13 million larger in 2060 compared to natural increase
alone."

It was interesting to note that the PC's modelling showed that real GDP growth (and growth per person) would be higher under its accelerated immigration scenario, suggesting that Australia might adopt a faster immigration programme over the next four decades.

Source: Productivity Commission

The counter-argument to this is that it doesn't take that many people to operate mines, and real income per person might not be a lot higher under a higher immigration scenario (while faster population growth brings associated infrastructure and traffic challenges).

It seems unlikely that a deliberately lower immigration programme than the "business-as-usual" case would be adopted, though.

That's partly because an organism that isn't growing is...dying. Moreover, immigrants are on average young workers, helping to slow down the ageing of Australia's population.

Migrants thus help to increase the participation rate and the tax take, while reducing the dependency ratio and the associated pressure on government expenditure as a result of population ageing.

Shifting sands

The PC Report found that migrant trends are changing, with most immigrants heading to the largest capital cities, and most immigrants now hailing from Asia. There are more people in Australia today that were born in China and India than there are people like me (i.e. born in England).

Notably: "Immigrants are much more likely to settle in capital cities, especially in inner city suburbs or suburbs near universities, than the Australian-born population."

Anyway, if you have a spare few days of downtime, here's the full document!